


Keep the Streets Empty for Me

by Ilostmywho



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, unhappy murder family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 13:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10102256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilostmywho/pseuds/Ilostmywho
Summary: Will had entered hesitantly. He walked quietly along the hallways as if to avoid rousing something terrible. As if the memories would stir awake along with the dust.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the beginning of season three, when Alana encounters Will in Hannibal's kitchen.

He'd dragged himself inside the house. The big, polished door was unlocked. Unsolicited. People knew. People in the area knew. It felt as if there wasn't a single living being in Baltimore who wasn't aware of what had happened in this house. An agent with his throat slit, a woman who got thrown out the window, a girl that bled out, a man that lay gutted. Will had been in a carnage. Not just one murder but several near-deaths. The only one who'd died had been a living dead. She'd faked her death and the real thing had come for her.

 

The hallway extended as an outreached hand; it pulled on him. Muted colors, solemn tapestry that had seemed full of life when the Ripper had lived here. The Chesapeake Ripper. Hannibal. They should have known. They should all have known.

 

The house spat him out in the kitchen, next to the steel fridge. Months ago, he'd stood where he stood now. There had been a gun in his hand. Hannibal had been there. At that time, Will had the upper hand. Momentum, gravity. It all came to its end in this kitchen.

 

If Will had shot him, there would have been a bang, a gust of metal and a bullet would have entered the cranium of a well-deserving man.

 

Hannibal, defenseless, eyes closed, had stood where Will stood now. As defenseless as he had ever been, before or after that. He hadn't shot him. Will hadn't shot him. Mercy and regret. He'd let the animal out of its cage. And the bodies that had grown cold after that was on his tab. His decision. His index finger, moving out of the way. His arms, lowering the gun. His feet leading him away. His back, unguarded, as he left.

 

His fault.

 

He sank down, sighing.

 

Quiet. The silence of a home where the worst has already happened.

 

Abigail, time and time again turning towards the fire that burned her. She could have come to him, sought help. She didn't. Abigail, strong as granite, unyielding. She'd waded out into the stream, allowing it to encompass her. An unforgivable repeat of pasts that had already played out, never ending in her favor.

 

Will had loved her, tentatively looked out for her. Just as with a cornered dog, you couldn't come on too strong. You had to lower your guard. He'd thought he had the time. Time for her to trust him.

 

Time, callous, tempered, slipped out of his grasp. As did Abigail.

 

He sought her in the crowd, in the lines at the supermarket, he saw her shape next to a car he passed on the motorway. They were all her; all slim bodies was her body, all the heads of dark hair belonged to her. He awoke to the sound of her voice.

 

She had lived in this house. She'd tried on sweaters, had dinners by the table, lifting the utensils with her too-pale hands. She'd smiled and laughed, had made dry remarks and jokes that fell flat and she'd perhaps gone to sleep in one of the guest rooms, drawing the curtains to rid the room of any remnants of the filthy yellow street light.

 

It was offensive to visit Hannibal's home like this. An intruder, a hostility. To barge in without permission or reason. This was his home. The monster's fortress. A castle fit for a king. Will had entered hesitantly. He walked quietly along the hallways as if to avoid rousing something terrible. As if the memories would stir awake along with the dust.

 

Will had brought him wine. He'd brought wine to a dinner. He'd driven for an hour and half to drop off the bottle. This was his wrong.

 

The wrongs piled up. Towering heights of misconducts. Will playing along, keeping up his end of the deal, many deals closed under crumpled circumstances built on misplaced trust, a misguided attempt at reaching out that had brought him nothing but misery. Will sat in the kitchen of the man who'd gutted him. He sat in the kitchen of his would-be murderer.

 

There had been many clues. In hindsight. Looking back, every new revelation only served to pull the rug out from underneath him. He had been blind. Willfully so. Because one truth sad badly with the other. Because being with him was finding shelter in a storm. Hannibal, a diving bell, a surge of fresh air. Will had been tugging at the ocean, brashly begging for a quiet sea. There was a serenity in the high space of the office, in the caged warmth of the open fire in the corner. A safety only meant to pull him asunder. He, a behaviorist, had been thoroughly deceived.

 

Lies.

 

Hannibal had been honest with him. He had lied to him. He'd asked, pried, looking over Will's shoulder.

 

Emptiness.

 

This was how his life had panned out. Here he was, a single man, missing three inches of his gut. He had to live with it.

 

He had killed Randall Tier. He'd murdered him, with his own two hands, his suddenly strong, relentless fingers wringing the life out of Randall's neck. It was as if he'd come undone. The textbook reaction, an instinctive reaching for whatever was closest, in this case his hands, his own hands, the hands that stroked the soft heads of his dogs, those hands had committed murder. When Randall's eyes fell open, unseeing, Will's chest constricted, mutely fumbling for air in a new world. It wasn't Hannibal. His fingers weren't around Hannibal's neck, he sat over the body of someone else. Someone was dead because of him, as a result of him. Because Randall had jumped in through Will's window, he was dead. Placing his body on Hannibal's pristine dinner table was just a feeble attempt at easing the weight. Spread out over the table cloth, the man, his victim, was no more. Soon, he would cease to be altogether. He would turn into a crime scene.

 

Seeing it anew, the design in the main hall of the museum, sent shivers up his spine. Everything was where he'd left it in the dark. A face, arrogantly spewing out judgment at whoever met his eyes, was stuck upon a feline skeleton. Teeth made of Neanderthal nightmares, beige swords and bent knives. Will stood there. He stood in front of Randall Tier and dissected him again. Jack, behind him, bearing a frown that seemed cemented, and Hannibal. Ever so slightly entertained. A set to his shoulders, bearing pride. This monstrosity was a testament to his suggestive powers; his gravity that set planets off course.

 

Hannibal, in Florence. He was in Italy, stringing Bedelia along. Will would go. He would take his ship, traverse the universe of the deep sea. He would go. He would find a monster. Will's hands were prepared to sink a knife into it. Sink his teeth into him, whatever he found that was made of flesh and blood. Despite that Hannibal had spared him, Will wasn't saved. He was left with the memories. Left in an empty kitchen.

 

He couldn't live with it.

 


End file.
